September 27, 2008

If you ever pass through the tiny hamlet of Inverness (California), on your way to Point Reyes National Seashore, be sure to stop at the Country Store and walk out to the beached boat out back... This is a popular spot for photographers... See you there...

This is the calf shed at the historic Pierce Point Dairy, established in 1860 by Solomon Pierce, at Point Reyes National Seashore.

The main house is still occupied by a park ranger, but it's great fun spooking-around the tank house, school, woodshed, carpenter shop, blacksmith shop, butter and cheese dairy building, horse barn, slaughter house, hay barn, hog shed, and a woodshed.

The location is remote, and in the early days the roads were poor, so they found it more profitable to turn most of the milk into butter and cheese, sending it south to San Francisco by boat.

Modern sanitation laws finally shut the dairy down in 1945, and other dairy farms in the area have taken up the slack since then.

September 22, 2008

I hadn't really looked at this photo, but it has less of the brown color-cast, and I think I like it better than the photo from yesterday. It's probably a bit more dramatic, as well...

I shot this from a newly found perch on a cliff near the north end of Rodeo Beach, a mile or two northwest of the Golden Gate Bridge. The wind was being driven up the cliff at a fierce rate -- any stronger and I may have been concerned about getting blown off...

September 21, 2008

I'd like to take a little survey today -- which do you prefer -- the first shot, with color; or the second shot, in black-and-white.

The reason I'm asking is that a good buddy of mine -- a skilled and experienced Photoshopper -- told me that the first photo has a brownish tinge to the splash water, making it look kind of dirty. He suggested that I change the brownish cast to more of a yellowish cast, or just turn the photo into a black-and-white, as in the second photo. I kind of like the photo just the way it is, brown and all, but can you folks give me a second opinion?

September 18, 2008

I normally don't do much planning for my photos, but in this case I had been waiting for a low-tide very late in the afternoon -- I needed to get the sun more-or-less behind me, and to do that I needed to get out on some rocks that are normally inaccessible.

This photo is so abstract that it may be difficult to tell, but that's wet sand (at the southern end of Rodeo Beach) reflecting the color of the yellow cliffs nearby, plus the color of the sky overhead.

September 17, 2008

Someone once told me about the golden-hours of photography, and that I should probably just put my camera away during the middle of the day. Of course that isn't always practical or necessary, but I still think it's pretty good advice.

September 11, 2008

Well, if those pesky foggy clouds weren't in the way you would be able to see Stinson Beach and the ocean... Way out on the right would be the tiny town of Bolinas, and Point Reyes beyond. Way out on the left would be the Golden Gate, and California coastline beyond.--Oh, those pesky foggy clouds...

September 09, 2008

Thanks to all of you who commented yesterday:Kjpweb, Evlahos -- (thanks) Photowannabe -- I think they keep a secure eye on them at night.Janice -- Yep, that would have a totally different feel in fog...Louise -- Imagine my surprise when I discovered these...Ivar Ivrig, Fish Whisperer, Roses+Lilacs -- (thanks)Chrisj -- Wish you were here too...Aileni -- How unique that your father saw the Buffalo Bill Show when he was a kid...Louis -- Hope you get out there -- money back guarantee...

I discovered something rather amazing on Friday at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, not far from the Cliff House...

It's the work of Thom Ross, and he has put a whole lot of work into these highly decorated plywood stand-ups of Indians and their horses.

When I first saw the installation I thought it was a unique celebration to the American Indian, but as it turns out it is a recreation of a turn of the century panoramic photograph of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, in which one hundred of his warriors posed on their horses in that same spot.

To quote SF-Gate: "The life-size plywood cutouts, above, lining the beach just below the Cliff House, are the work of Western artist Thom Ross, who based the richly colored tableaux on a famous black-and-white photo of Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show, below, that was taken on the same stretch of Ocean Beach in 1902. "It's a Valentine to my hometown," said Ross, a San Francisco native who lives in Seattle and sports a Vandyke much like the one worn by the Buffalo Bill on the beach. Ross, who re-created Custer's Last Stand at Little Big Horn with 200 wooden figures in 2005, will put on his Wild West show through Sept. 15."